Halide definitely capture more detail, so I get where you're coming from. I think proraw is the best thing ever for iPhone pics though. With these tiny 12 MP sensors, two things you're not getting that much of is dynamic range and colour depth.Standard RAW is so much better than ProRAW for many cases except when you need the effects of Apple's HDR. ProRAW is really just Apple HEICs with more editing headroom, it's not a true replacement for standard RAW in my experience (I guess others have come to this conclusion too). Apple's HEIC and ProRAW photos often wash out colors and add all that weird glowing oil painting effect which I find truly disgusting. Not a fan of that but I understand it's the tradeoff for getting usable photos 99/100 times you press the shutter button. Meanwhile true RAW photos keep all the details, rich colors, pleasant contrast, and natural grain intact.
This photo is Halide RAW + Pixelmator Pro, without a doubt my favorite way to take photos. No other camera has the same ratio of convenience to quality. The iPhone truly is unbeatable as a package for photos and videos.
So with the smart HDR, Apple is able to significantly boost dynamic range - which imo is the the most glaring thing lacking in cell phone photos not shot in HDR. I would have liked to see highlight detail in the clouds in your photo, for example. Second thing is colour depth, which I don't think there's a way to beat with computational yet, but not everyone can notice this difference. However, HEIC photos being 10-bit give you a boost over the standard JPEG, so I welcome that too. I like that I was able to get this from my iPhone 13 Pro Max; would have been hard pre-smart HDR.
With proraw you get all these benefits, and yes you give up some fine detail since it bakes in some noise reduction, but in the end I still prefer proraw for the dynamic range benefits. When I want more detail and better quality, I use my A7 IV.
